On this day
Revisit the music, news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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Yevgeny Plushenko (Russia) wins men's figure skating event; Stephane Lambiel (Switzerland) wins silver; Jeffrey Buttle (Canada) wins bronze; photos (M)
When developers in Arlington, Va., threw a party 18 months ago to showcase plans for Clarendon 1021, a condominium development that had not yet been built, 3,600 prospective buyers stood in line just for the chance to book reservations to bid on the apartments. Now, less than a year after the building opened, speculators in this and other buildings are putting dozens of units on the market at the same time, causing asking prices and profits to slip.
The KeySpan Corporation, which provides electricity and natural gas to more than a million customers on Long Island, has been put up for sale and has already attracted offers of more than $6.5 billion, according to people involved in the process. Two big utility companies, Consolidated Edison and National Grid, have emerged as the front-runners to acquire KeySpan, and a bidding war between the two may ensue, these people said.
With a purplish dusk settling over the city, a few workers in a hurricane-damaged warehouse daub the final garish touches on an armada of Mardi Gras floats. Any day now, these grotesqueries on wheels will roll through city streets, reminding all who see them to seize the day, for tomorrow we fast. Across the rutted street from the warehouse, the workers can gaze at the railroad tracks and see an endless stretch of unspoiled white government trailers, sitting on flatcars like a broken string of oversize, colorless Mardi Gras beads. A different kind of grotesquerie on wheels, these trailers will be homes for the fortunate, reminding all who see them that six months after Hurricane Katrina, hard times, not good times, continue to roll in the great city of New Orleans.
Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, slim, soft-spoken and with a worldly air that is right at home here in an elegant drawing room of an old-money West End hotel, is the personification of what outsiders increasingly refer to as Dubai Inc. And he sees no reason that Dubai, where he serves as one of the royal family's most trusted financial advisers, should not be accepted as a full-fledged and legitimate player on the global business stage.
Music on My Birthday
The Top 50 albums for the chart week of February 15, 2006, covering February 17, 2006.
Barry Manilow
Mary J. Blige
Andrea Bocelli
Jamie Foxx
Heather Headley
2006Tyler Dibling, English footballer[†]
Tyler-Jay Robert Dibling is an English professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for EFL Championship club Southampton.
2006Ray Barretto, American drummer (born 1929)[†]
Raymundo "Ray" Barretto Pagán was an American percussionist and bandleader of Puerto Rican descent. Throughout his career as a percussionist, he played a wide variety of Latin music styles, as well as Latin jazz. His first hit, "El Watusi", was recorded by his Charanga Moderna in 1962, becoming the most successful pachanga song in the United States. In the late 1960s, Barretto became one of the leading exponents of boogaloo and what would later be known as salsa. Nonetheless, many of Barretto's recordings would remain rooted in more traditional genres such as son cubano. A master of the descarga, Barretto was a long-time member of the Fania All-Stars. His success continued into the 1970s with songs such as "Cocinando" and "Indestructible". His last album for Fania Records, Soy dichoso, was released in 1990. He then formed the New World Spirit jazz ensemble and continued to tour and record until his death in 2006. He is the father of American vocalist and saxophonist Chris Barretto, best known for his work with Periphery and Monuments.
2006A massive mudslide occurs in Southern Leyte, Philippines; the official death toll is set at 1,126.[†]
On February 17, 2006, a massive rock slide-debris avalanche occurred in the Philippine province of Southern Leyte, causing widespread damage and loss of life. The deadly landslide followed a 10-day period of heavy rain and a minor earthquake. The official death toll was 1,126.
In 2006, the world population was approximately 6,671,452,015 people[†]